This proposal is in response to RFA: HD-02-008, Development Of Community Child Health Research. The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has partnered with Baltimore City Healthy Start Inc. to respond to this RFA. The Phase 1 objectives of the community-linked collaborative approach to addressing maternal and child health outcomes outlined in this RFA will be well achieved by the research and community practitioner team we have assembled. Baltimore City has a long history of high levels of infant mortality and racial inequalities in pregnancy health. A formidable history of collaboration and productivity makes the Hopkins-Healthy Start team well suited to undertake social, behavioral, and biomedical community-linked maternal and child health research. We propose two hypothetical, multi-level Phase 2 studies concerning the promotion of healthy pregnancies and pregnancy outcomes. In each proposed study, we extend the existing knowledge base to propose innovative concepts and methods that will promote progress in the study racial disparities and of how multiple level of influencing factors (e.g. biological, psychosocial, and community) are associated with pregnancy risks and outcomes. Furthermore, we have established strong links to Morgan State University, a historically Black college, to develop a postdoctoral fellowship program to train participants to undertake independent biological, psychological, or sociological community-based maternal and child health research.